Bertone, founded in November 1912, is Italy's oldest contract manufacturer and consists of four branches: Carrozzeria Bertone, Stile Bertone, Bertone Engineering and Bertone Glass. The Bertone family lost control of the Carrozzeria when bankruptcy administrators took control in February 2008. The Bertone design business, which was not affected by the collapse of the contract manufacturing unit, remains in the hands of the Bertone family.

Fiat will invest 150 million euros over three years in the struggling contract manufacturer. Fiat did not disclose which niche model or models it would make at Bertone's Turin factory. The only detail the company gave was that the vehicles would be sold in Europe and North America.

This was Fiat's second attempt this decade to take control of Bertone's coachbuilding business. In 2006, Fiat started negotiations to buy a controlling stake in the company. It planned to make a coupe cabriolet for the Lancia brand at the plant, but negotiations between Fiat and Bertone stopped in spring 2007. Shortly after, Fiat scrapped their plans to make the coupe cabriolet, which was known as the Fulvia.

Via Autoblog.nl